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Michelangelo  Michelangelo Buonarroti, one of the greatest artists of all time, was not exactly a noble and humble man. Irritable, arrogant, and impatient, his perfectionism and expectations drove away many potential friends, and even provoked one would-be friend to hit him in the nose, crushing it "like a biscuit." However, what's truly important for us today is that this man ultimately became an artistic genius, mastering the three arts of the Renaissance: sculpture, painting, and architecture. From his early years, when he created the Pieta (at age 25), to his 40 years of tormented work on a monumental tomb for Pope Julius II, to his greatest masterpiece, the paintings in the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo astounded people with his almost otherworldly talent. Diane Stanley's well-researched, vivid narrative captures the life of the creator of some of the world's most beautiful, heart-wrenching works of art. Her illustrations are fantastically elaborate and include details of many of Michelangelo's sculptures and paintings. Michelangelo is a perfect introduction to art and art history, with plenty of compelling background information about the Renaissance and life in 15th and 16th century Italy. Stanley has written many other award-winning picture-book biographies, including Leonardo da Vinci and Cleopatra. (Ages 9 to 12) --Emilie Coulter Renaissance Artists Who Inspired the World (Explore the Ages)  Celebrates the spirit of the Renaissance and the work of important artists from Italy. Includes Sandro Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Sofonisba Anguissola. A great non-fiction reading book with readable text and stunning visuals to make literature accessible to readers at all levels. It uses primary source material to transport readers into the historical period and time lines to strengthen readers' ability to place people and events in history. Leonardo Da Vinci: 1452-1519: The Complete Paintings and Drawings (Taschen 25th Anniversary)  TASCHEN's 25th anniversary - Special edition! Special bestseller price Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) possessed one of the greatest minds of all time; his importance and influence are inestimable. This XXL-format comprehensive survey is the most complete book ever made on the subject of this Italian painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, scientist and all-around genius. With huge, full-bleed details of Leonardo's masterworks, this highly original publication allows the reader to inspect the subtlest facets of his brushstrokes. * Part I explores Leonardo's life and work in ten chapters. All of his paintings are interpreted in depth, with The Annunciation and The Last Supper featured on large double-spreads. * Part II comprises a catalogue raisonn? of Leonardo's paintings, which covers all of his surviving and lost painted works and includes texts describing their states of preservation. * Part III contains an extensive catalogue of his drawings (numbering in the thousands, they cannot all be reproduced in one book); 663 are presented, arranged by category (architecture, technical, anatomical, figures, proportion, cartography, etc). This sumptuous TASCHEN offering is the most thorough and beautifully produced Leonardo book ever published, and this special edition offers it for a third of the usual price.Author: Frank Zollner, Johannes Nathan Hardcover: 695 pages Illustrated Company: Taschen (2007-08-01) ISBN: 3822838276 List Price: $70.00 Amazon Price: $44.10 Used Price: $44.00 Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling  Almost 500 years after Michelangelo Buonarroti frescoed the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, the site still attracts throngs of visitors and is considered one of the artistic masterpieces of the world. Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling unveils the story behind the art's making, a story rife with all the drama of a modern-day soap opera.The temperament of the day was dictated by the politics of the papal court, a corrupt and powerful office steeped in controversy; Pope Julius II even had a nickname, "Il Papa Terrible," to prove it. Along with his violent outbursts and warmongering, Pope Julius II took upon himself to restore the Sistine Chapel and pretty much intimidated Michelangelo into painting the ceiling even though the artist considered himself primarily a sculptor and was particularly unfamiliar with the temperamental art of fresco. Along with technical difficulties, personality conflicts, and money troubles, Michelangelo was plagued by health problems and competition in the form of the dashing and talented young painter Raphael. Author Ross King offers an in-depth analysis of the complex historical background that led to the magnificence that is the Sistine Chapel ceiling along with detailed discussion of some of the ceiling's panels. King provides fabulous tidbits of information and weaves together a fascinating historical tale. --J.P. Cohen Michelangelo A&I (Art and Ideas)  The books in the Art and Ideas series, which will cover everything from Fra Angelico to Frida Kahlo, are supremely pleasurable to read. In this volume, for example, Anthony Hughes writes dryly of a Michelangelo sculpture of Christ, which was tinkered with and damaged during installation in March 1521: "Since then, more tampering has taken place.... From the late sixteenth century, Christ's genitalia were hidden beneath a bronze loincloth, although that did not prevent a zealous Dominican from trying to remove the penis." Written by scholarly experts who know how to turn a phrase and focus a gaze, the books are filled with hundreds of crisp, color reproductions that give purely visual pleasure and information. Their handy size, 6 1/4 by 8 1/2 inches, makes them easy to carry in a briefcase or backpack, and the text is printed in an easy-to-read typeface, with generous spacing. Even the time lines, biographies, and glossaries in the back are inviting to the eye. There will eventually be more than 100 volumes in the series, which is comparable to Thames and Hudson's World of Art series. Author: Anthony Hughes Paperback: 352 pages Company: Phaidon Press (1997-09-12) ISBN: 0714834831 List Price: $19.95 Amazon Price: $7.98 Used Price: $4.18 Who Was Leonardo da Vinci? (Who Was...?)  Author: Roberta Edwards Paperback: 112 pages Company: Grosset & Dunlap (2005-09-08) ISBN: 0448443015 List Price: $4.99 Amazon Price: $1.49 Used Price: $1.26 Da Vinci And His Times (DK Eyewitness Books)  Celebrate the renewed popularity of history's original Renaissance man with a re-launched edition of this classic Eyewitness book, featuring eight exciting new pages of material.Author: Andrew Langley Hardcover: 72 pages Company: DK CHILDREN (2006-02-20) ISBN: 0756617685 List Price: $15.99 Amazon Price: $7.90 Used Price: $4.80 Amazing Leonardo da Vinci Inventions You Can Build Yourself (Build It Yourself series)  From armored tanks and gliders to "plastic glass" and drawing machines, this interactive book explores the incredible mind of Leonardo da Vinci through hands-on building projects and activities. Most of Leonardo's inventions were never made in his lifetime and remained sketches in his famous notebooks; kids examine some of these original sketches and learn about the models he made of his inventions. From there they delve into detailed step-by-step instructions, diagrams, and templates for each project, which are interspersed with historical facts, biographical anecdotes, and trivia. Most of the building can be done using simple household supplies: construction paper, tape, markers, glue, cardboard tubes, aluminum foil, and cardboard boxes. Background about the Renaissance as a period of remarkable achievement in art and science appears throughout the book. Author: Maxine Anderson Paperback: 128 pages Company: Nomad Press (2006-01-01) ISBN: 0974934429 List Price: $14.95 Amazon Price: $8.75 Used Price: $8.70 Leonardo's Notebooks  Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) possessed arguably the greatest mind the world has ever known. Artist, draftsman, inventor, and philosopher, his contributions to modern society are profound and wide-reaching. Throughout his life, Leonardo kept dozens of notebooks, elegant studies on topics ranging from architecture to botany to philosophy—indeed nearly anything of which the human imagination could conceive. Leonardo’s Notebooks collects a variety of the most fascinating of these studies and compiles them into one monumental volume that demystifies his insights and clearly illustrates his ideas, experiments, and observations with hundreds of his original sketches, line drawings, and paintings. Topics include Anatomy and the Movement of the Human Figure; Botany and Landscape; Engineering and Military Engineering; Physical Sciences; Aerodynamics and Flight; Geography—and more. Author: Leonardo da Vinci Hardcover: 352 pages Company: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers (2005-08-01) ISBN: 1579124577 List Price: $40.00 Amazon Price: $18.96 Used Price: $9.99 The Lives of the Artists (Oxford World's Classics)  These biographies of the great quattrocento artists have long been considered among the most important of contemporary sources on Italian Renaissance art. Vasari, who invented the term "Renaissance," was the first to outline the influential theory of Renaissance art that traces a progression through Giotto, Brunelleschi, and finally the titanic figures of Michaelangelo, Da Vinci, and Raphael. This new translation, specially commissioned for the World's Classics series, contains thirty-six of the most important lives and is fully annotated.Author: Giorgio Vasari Paperback: 616 pages Company: Oxford University Press, USA (1998-07-16) ISBN: 019283410X List Price: $12.95 Amazon Price: $4.49 Used Price: $3.15 |